Lovely shots and well beyond my skill set. Can I ask you, are the coffee maker reflections done in PS or on the shoot? Also to get the gradiated background, would you be sneaking a grid or a snoot behind and underneath the coffee maker. I wouldn't know where to begin with managing the reflections!

The reflection under the machine is real but the rest of the background is made in photoshop.Although I was schooled in the 10x8 in-camera way of shooting still life it's easier to do some things in post, as it's me that puts the shot together I know what I need to shoot to get the final image I want. If you look at the tonal fall-off across the side, front panels and lever groups it's not physically possible for the machine to look like that in one lighting exposure (the surfaces being mirrors) so they have been shot individually but the tones/gradations are real.

I shot a little looser a couple weeks ago. No lights, only my camera (although I did have to adjust window shades). I dig the results! But the interiors were very forgiving, so I am not going to say I can do this all the time now.

I shot all with the SK 35mm; captured some shots with the CF at ISO 50 and some without the CF at ISO 100. I grabbed people from both kinds of captures for each image. No HDR layering, just some pushing and noise reduction in post.

"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent moving furniture." Arnold Newman“Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” William Faulkner

Not sure what you mean? The machine is there!? The company who manufacture the machine are based in Birmingham (the real one not the U.S. One) family run business who now export machines to Italy and have won a Queens award for export.We have a phrase 'coals to Newcastle' which is very apt.